Instigator Blog

You’ve just decided to leave your job. Or maybe you’re moonlighting. Either way you’re out there, offering your services to the highest bidder. Congrats!

The world of consulting and freelancing is a vast, mercurial place filled with all sorts of opportunities. But there’s danger lurking about as well. When you first jump into the game, eager for that first contract, you can find yourself in trouble with difficult clients, overblown projects, time constraints and more.

Here are 10 tips to help new consultants and freelancers get a headstart:

1. Set Expectations As Clearly As Possible. This is harder than it sounds. Clients are notoriously bad listeners. They want the moon, but they want to pay in loose change. Or they don’t quite know what they want but they want a super-accurate quote. Your job as a consultant or freelancer is to explain what you’re going to do and for how much and in what time frame as clearly as you possibly can. Write it down. Tell them. Repeat yourself. Write some more. Get them to sign proposals and specifications.
2. Get Money Upfront. Always ask for a percentage of the contract upfront - to be paid before you start. A decent amount is 25% or 33%, but even 10% of the contract in your bank account before you do a lick of work is better than nothing. You’ll have to ask for it to get it, very few clients will hand it over.
3. Make Sure Payment Terms Are Agreed On. There are two key elements when it comes to payment terms — (1) When you can invoice, and (2) When they’ll pay. Setup a payment schedule and make sure you know their payment terms. Oftentimes it’ll be Net 15 or Net 30 - which means they’ll pay an invoice in 15 or 30 days, but some companies have 45 or 60 day terms (which are not good for you!)
4. Get Expenses Paid For. Try and get the client to cover your expenses. The most common would be travel costs. There may also be specialized equipment needed to do a job, or other things you need to purchase. A web designer might need to purchase some stock photography, for example. If you can’t get this stuff paid for, consider increasing your contract price to cover any expenses you foresee.
5. Be Ready To Stop Work If You Don’t Get Paid. This is tough because it’s the start of a souring relationship, but you’re not a volunteer. You might consider having something in the contract/agreement that clearly stipulates work stoppages upon non-payment. Or, you leave it open-ended, at your discretion; but be mentally prepared and tough enough to tell the client, “No money, no work.”
6. Get a Testimonial or Reference During the Project. You don’t have to wait for the end of the project to ask for a testimonial or reference. Hit ‘em up in the middle, assuming things are going well and you’re getting positive reviews from the client. How do you get a testimonial? You ask. Sounds silly, but it’s true.
7. Track Your Time. Even if the client isn’t expecting timesheets from you, track your time anyway. Do it for your own understanding of how long things take. Do it so you’ll get more accurate at pricing projects (cause you’ll probably be lousy at it for awhile.) Do it in case a client demands justification for work you’ve done.
8. Don’t Ignore Client Communication. Managing and communicating actively with clients is critical to success as a consultant or freelancer. It’s not enough to do the work. They’ll want updates, status reports, etc. The more handholding you can do — without it consuming too much time and taking away from getting your work done — the better. A well-updated client is generally a happier one, even if you’re bringing them bad news, because they’ll feel on top of the situation and more in control.
9. Network Within the Organization. It’s always a good idea to inculcate yourself as deeply into your client’s organization as possible. If you’re hired by a District Manager, try and get introduced to her boss or other District Managers. The more connections you have the better. For starters it can lead to more work. It can also help in situations where your primary contact disappears - maybe they quit, get transferred / promoted, etc. Lots of opportunity is lost by consultants and freelancers when they’ve only got one contact in an organization and that contact is no longer in a position to hire them.
10. Document Everything. The more you track - in writing - the better protected you are in almost every imaginable circumstance. Miscommunications can be minimized and disasters can be contained by documented proof of what’s going on. As well, documentation is a valuable asset for setting clear expectations, defining goals and understanding project scope. Just write it all down.

Being a consultant or freelancer can be one of the most rewarding professional experiences. You’re an entrepreneur, growing a business. Opportunity abounds. You finally get to take your expertise and leverage it the way you want.

But it’s a learning process. Sometimes it can be a fairly steep learning curve, and you have to be prepared for that.

ilovetoplay.com is a new social network for people looking to play with other people. Sports that is.

From their site:

ilovetoplay.com connects sports participants. This service helps you find the people you need to connect with so you can better organize your sports activities. Just about everyone and every activity in sports can use and benefit from this service: players, teams, coaches, instructors, schools, camps, clinics, facility providers (such as gyms, courts, fields, pools, etc.), game, tournament, and league organizers, and more.

It’s a cool idea - a niche social network - which is an extremely popular business to get into these days. Making money is the tricky part, and right now ilovetoplay has a bit of AdSense advertising on the site but not much more. Still, it’s early, and you can see the potential as they draw more traffic to secure sponsorship deals within the sports industry, get more targeted advertising and offer premium services.

One of the cool things ilovetoplay.com did recently was an online video commercial. It’s funny, catchy and attention grabbing - I think it’ll play well to their target audience:

So if you’re tired of playing with yourself, go check out ilovetoplay.com and find others to play with.

No matter what you do, you can’t create more time.

It’s why the idea of working smarter not harder is so popular. It’s why there are millions of productivity websites, blogs, books, guides and gurus. People argue over the semantics of “time management” constantly … can time really be managed? If you can’t control time, or stop it, or create more of it, how can it be managed? If a tree falls in the forest…so on and so forth.

When it comes to running a successful service-based business the key factor with respect to time is understanding how long things really take to do.

If you can get a handle on that, you can start to grow a more successful business.

And even if you think you know how long things take, measure it properly anyway. You’ll likely be quite surprised. People always underestimate how long things take. When you consider all the time involved in doing a project — closing the sale, client management, doing the work, testing, client review, customer support, etc. — it all adds up.

Once you have a better sense of how long things are taking to do, you have the information you need to:

1. Improve productivity. You’ll discover the inefficiencies and be able to focus on eliminating them more quickly. Trying to attack productivity with a nuclear bomb is pointless; you need a laser-guided missile.
2. Analyze your cost structure. More than likely, as you get busier, and you see how long things are really taking, you’re going to look at raising your prices. Go for it. You should.

The result of being more productive and raising prices is more money in your pocket for less work. And in the service business that’s exactly where you want to be.

Image by pinoy bart

First impressions are critical. Whether it’s face-to-face, through your blog design or via instant message, you always want to put your best foot forward.

With so many people connecting online on a daily basis, it’s more than likely that your first communication with someone is through instant messaging rather than email, phone or face-to-face. That’s just how prevalent and accepted instant messaging is today as a form of communication.

And there’s no shortage of technology choices either. I use a handful of options including Skype, MSN, Gtalk, AIM and ICQ.

By its very nature, instant messaging is a very informal means of communication. With email, people have the opportunity to think about what they’re writing, save drafts for another time and respond at a slower pace. On the phone, people are typically very professional but also very comfortable since we’ve all used the phone for many years. Instant messaging changes a lot of the rules of communication because it’s:

• Informal feeling and casual
• Designed for very fast communication
• Unstructured and messy
• Increasing people’s availability and demands on their time

And now instant messaging is evolving into “broadcast instant messaging” through tools like Twitter which in some ways exacerbate the chaos created by instant messaging.

Given its nature, it might be easy to ignore the impression you leave through instant messaging. But that would be a big mistake.

Through every bit of communication - whether it’s a well-thought out email, phone conversation, meeting or instant message chat - you’re forming an impression and being given the opportunity to sell and promote yourself.

People forget that when it comes to instant message.

Recently I had two separate conversations via instant message that left me unimpressed. The people were flippant, slow to respond, and too casual in their style of writing. “Hey d00d” isn’t how I want to be addressed when we first connect online to talk about business.

It’s important to remember that the rules of communication still apply when connecting via instant message:

• Be respectful
• Show interest
• Don’t ignore people
• Don’t communicate like a 16-year old teenager talking to her girlfriends
• Treat conversations seriously and professionally
• Get a feel for how the other person wants to communicate and work towards that

Instant messaging is a great tool for communication. I use it constantly. But when you start reaching out to people - making those first contacts and having those first critical conversations - be smart about it. Remember: you’re making a first impression that will stick with people for a very long time, even if it’s just through a little chat box.

While looking at some contemporary rugs on the Home Depot website I came across a few comments that looked suspicious.

Let me preface this quickly — having communication features like comments and reviews on e-commerce sites is great. I often look at the reviews and ratings before digging into product details, because there may be some wisdom in the crowds worth picking up on. If 400 people say one wireless router is better than another, there has to be some value there. Same holds true for all kinds of products, including books. Amazon.com gets lots of people leaving detailed, valuable reviews. So what about rugs?

Well, here are the 3 comments that stood out for me, and you can decide:

Rug #1
“I was looking everywhere for a multi-coloured rug for a small budget–and saw this one online, went to home depot the next day to look at it and it is better in real life–love the fact that there is matching smaller rugs too.” - Sudbury gal, January 12, 2007

Rug #2
“My husband and I were searching for a new area rug, and we could not find anything we liked for a smaller budget. But then I found this rug online. I went to the Home Depot the next day to see it, and it was better than the picture! This rug is nice and dark, with lots of great patterns. We get compliments on it all the time! To find an area rug this size for this price is extremly hard, but we could not be happier with our purchase!” - Great rug, great price!, November 28, 2006 / By Small town gal from Saskatchewan

Rug #3
“My husband and I were searching for a new area rug, and we could not find anything we liked for a smaller budget. But then I found this rug online. I went to the Home Depot the next day to see it, and it was better than the picture! This rug is nice and dark, with lots of great patterns. We get compliments on it all the time! To find an area rug this size for this price is extremly hard, but we could not be happier with our purchase!” - Great Rug! Great Price!, January 5, 2007 / By Sally from Toronto

I suppose it could be the same person who made all three comments. It’s not uncommon for people to move three times in the span of three months right? So she was in Saskatchewan, then hopped over to Toronto, decided that wasn’t for her and moved to Sudbury…And of course she only identified herself as “Sally” while living in Toronto.

Something is amiss.

My first reaction was, “Someone at Home Depot is putting in bogus comments.” Is that possible? Would they bother?

I noticed very few comments in the rugs section; maybe someone at Home Depot decided to fill in a few holes and make the site look less dead.

My next thought was that it was an overzealous manufacturer trying to pimp their own carpets - but all three of the carpets are made by different companies.

So I’m back to wondering about Home Depot and whether they’d try and scam people by posting fake comments. Maybe its a coincidence or someone being stupid, but it’s definitely a mystery, and something smells distinctly fishy.

What do you guys think?